Featured Image Credit: 24K-Production / Space Frontiers/Stringer / Getty
There's still so much that we don't know about space, but what we are aware of is an asteroid floating around that's worth an estimated $10,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Stepping foot on the Moon, getting a wooden satellite into space, and surviving on the International Space Station are all achievements that NASA and other space-associated companies will be endlessly proud of.
Breaching the outer confines of Earth will always remain a challenge - at least in the foreseeable future - but what if there was something out there in space that could at least sort out the money side of things?
Well, it just so happens that NASA is aware of 16 Psyche - an asteroid worth a whopping $10 quintillion - and has officially launched a spacecraft in an effort to explore and research the floating ball of rock and metal.
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The reason why this particular random asteroid is worth so much money is due to its construction, which is estimated to be between 30 and 60 percent metal.
It's argued that within the metal aspects are materials like gold, iron, and nickel, which when amassed in something as large and heavy as this asteroid really start to add up in value.
This potato-shaped asteroid is one of the largest of its kind in the solar system, measuring 173 miles across its widest point with 64,000 square miles of total surface area.
The tricky part then is actually reaching it, which has proven quite troubling considering that humans have been aware of 16 Psyche's existence for 172 years.
Discovered by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis on March 17, 1852, this asteroid was originally named after the Greek goddess of the soul, with the '16' referring to the fact that it was the 16th asteroid to be discovered.
NASA, with the assistance of a SpaceX rocket, officially launched what they're calling the Psyche spacecraft in October 2023, and it is travelling towards the asteroid using low-thrust solar-electric propulsion.
This spacecraft is expected to fly by Mars in May 2026, at which point it'll use the red planet's gravitational pull to increase its velocity and eventually be 'captured' by the gravity of 16 Psyche in July 2029.
It'll then use a number of different equipment in order to study the asteroid, with one of its main goals to find out if 16 Psyche is indeed the core of a planetesimal, which is within the current line of thinking.
Outside of it's significant monetary value, 16 Psyche could also give us information regarding how the Earth's core - or other similar rocky or terrestrial planets - came to be, which would be a major breakthrough for space-based science.
